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In recent interviews and speeches, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the military is “challenging every past assumption, every past formula” for allocating budget resources as he tries to reorganize the military for 21st century challenges in the face of a rapidly tightening budget.

Harry Reid and Paul Ryan seem to have it figured out. If Democrats and Republicans don’t demand compromises from each other, everyone can get along. It’s the perfect political grand bargain: Do nothing.

We will soon see whether there is any remaining capacity in the U.S. political system to reach compromise across partisan lines for the common good.

Republican congressional leaders say that if President Obama wants the government to reopen and the debt limit to be increased he will have to make concessions on spending and agree to negotiate a long-term deficit reduction deal. Obama says he will not negotiate anything until the debt limit is raised and the government reopened. After that, he’ll talk.

Reflecting the sour public mood towards Washington, a panel of experts on the federal budget described themselves Thursday night as worried, puzzled, frustrated and disappointed as the fiscal stalemate dragged on.

They faulted top political leaders and other elected officials in both parties for irresponsibility, inflexibility and, in some cases, a lack of common sense.

Lawmakers struggling with the Fiscal 2014 budget will face an even tougher challenge funding the government in future years as interest payments rise to record levels, squeezing other parts of the budget and making it more difficult to quell rising deficits.

Although slow economic growth and Federal Reserve monetary policies have kept interest rates at record lows in recent years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects rates to rise steadily in the coming years, making interest payments the fastest growing part of the federal budget.

Syria is not the only challenge Congress faces as it returns to Washington from its August recess. Monday was the first of only nine legislative days that both the Senate and House of Representatives will be in session before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Congress will need to approve a spending plan before then and take action on the debt limit not long after that.

For those who follow the credit rating agencies’ assessments of the United States, the past several weeks have offered mixed messages. Overall, some improvement has been noted, mostly due to the steadily improving economy and the declining deficit. Concerns remain, however, about the long-term outlook and the ability of elected leaders to raise the nation’s debt ceiling without provoking a crisis.

The Obama Administration released its Mid-Session Review (MSR) of the budget on Monday. It would be nice to say that this update arrived just in time to clinch the deal on a fiscal sustainability plan, or even a plan to get through the rest of the year, but sadly that is not the case.